A generation later, in the year 613, Aethelfrith the Northumbrian, king of Bernicia and Deira, made a similar advance westward. In a great battle at Deva (Chester) he defeated the allied princes of Cumbria and North Wales. This fight was long remembered because of the massacre of a host of monks who had come to supplicate Heaven for the victory of the Celts over the pagan English. "If they do not fight against us with their arms, they do so with their prayers," said the Northumbrian king, and bade his warriors cut them all down. The city of Deva was sacked, and remained a mere ring of mouldering Roman walls for three centuries. The district round it became English, and thus the Cumbrians were separated from the North Welsh by a belt of hostile territory.
The battles of Chester and Deorham settled the future of Britain; the Celts became comparatively helpless when they had been cut into three distinct sections, in Cumbria, Wales, and Damnonia. The future of the island now lay in the hands of the English, not in that of the ancient inhabitants of Britain.
The invaders and the natives.
The states which the invaders had built up were, as might have been inferred from their origin, small military monarchies. The basis of each had been the war-band that followed some successful "alderman," for the invaders were not composed of whole tribes emigrating en masse, but of the more adventurous members of the race only. The bulk of the Saxons and Jutes remained behind on the continent in their ancient homes, and so did many of the Angles. When the successful chief had conquered a district of Britain and assumed the title of king, he would portion the land out among his followers, reserving a great share for his own royal demesne. Each of the king's sworn companions, or gesiths as the old English called them, became the centre of a small community of dependents—his children, servants, and slaves. At first the invaders often slew off the whole Celtic population of a valley, but ere long they found the convenience of reducing them to slavery and forcing them to till the land for their new masters. In eastern Britain and during the first days of the conquest the natives were often wholly extirpated, but in the central and still more in the western part of the island they were allowed to survive as serfs, and thus there is much Celtic blood in England down to this day. But this native element was never strong enough to prevail over and absorb the conquerors, as happened to the Goths of Spain and the Franks of Gaul, who finally lost their language and their national identity among the preponderant mass of their own dependents.
As the conquest of Britain went on, many families who had not been in the war-band of the original invader came in to join the first settlers, and to dwell among them, so that the king had many English subjects besides his original gesiths. Some of the villages in his dominions would therefore be inhabited by the servile dependents of one of these early-coming military chiefs, others by the free bands of kinsmen who had drifted in of their own accord to settle in the land. When we see an English village with a name like Saxmundham, or Edmonton, or Wolverton, we may guess that the place was originally the homestead of a lord named Saxmund, or Eadmund, or Wulfhere, and his dependents. But when it has a name like Buckingham, or Paddington, or Gillingham, we know that it was the common settlement of a family, the Buckings or the Paddings or the Gillings, for the termination -ing in old English invariably implied a body of descendants from common ancestors.
Administration—Aldermen and shire-reeves.
The early English states were administered under the king by aldermen, or military chiefs, to each of whom was entrusted the government of one of the various regions of the kingdom, and by reeves, who were responsible for the royal property and dues, each in his own district. The larger kingdoms, such as Wessex, were soon cut up into shires, each with its alderman and shire-reeve (sheriff), and many of these shires exist down to our own day.
The king and the witan.
The supreme council of the realm was formed by the king, the aldermen, and a certain number of the greater gesiths who served about the king's person. The king and great men discussed subjects of national moment, while the people sat round and shouted assent or dissent to their speeches. The king did not take any measure of importance without the advice of his councillors, who were known as the Witan, or Wise-men. When a king died, or ruled tyrannically, or became incompetent, it was the Witan who chose a new monarch from among the members of the royal family, for there was as yet no definite rule of hereditary succession, and the kingship was elective, though the Witan never went outside the limits of the royal house in their nominations.
The shire-moot and tun-moot.